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Running head: ASKING FOR IT 1 Asking For It: The Sexualized Violence of Jian Ghomeshi as Depicted by Four Traditional Journalistic Media Sources Karissa L. Sovdi Running head: ASKING FOR IT 2 Table of Contents Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... 4 Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................................... 4 Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 5 Literature Review ......................................................................................................................... 7 Activist Scholarship Regarding Rape Culture ..................................................................................... 8 Media and Language ............................................................................................................................ 11 Methods ........................................................................................................................................ 15 Data Acquisition ................................................................................................................................... 16 CBC data. ........................................................................................................................................... 17 Dailies data. ........................................................................................................................................ 17 The Toronto Star. .......................................................................................................................................... 17 The Globe and Mail. ...................................................................................................................................... 17 The National Post. ......................................................................................................................................... 18 Data Coding .......................................................................................................................................... 18 Results .......................................................................................................................................... 20 Representative Language Regarding Perpetrator Involvement....................................................... 20 Ghomeshi’s Facebook statement. ....................................................................................................... 20 Analysis. ........................................................................................................................................................ 24 Ghomeshi and the CBC: lawsuit and dismissal. ................................................................................. 32 Representative Language Regarding Victim Involvement ............................................................... 33 Toronto Star exposé: “CBC Fires Ghomeshi Over Sex Allegations.” ............................................... 33 Analysis. ........................................................................................................................................................ 35 Case example honouring victims. ...................................................................................................... 39 Running head: ASKING FOR IT 3 Analysis. ........................................................................................................................................................ 39 Other Language Samples and the Four-Discursive-Operations ...................................................... 39 1.1 Conceal violence. ......................................................................................................................... 40 Analysis. ........................................................................................................................................................ 41 1.2 Expose violence............................................................................................................................ 43 Analysis. ........................................................................................................................................................ 46 2.1 Obscure and mitigate offenders’ responsibility. ........................................................................... 48 Analysis. ........................................................................................................................................................ 48 2.2 Clarify offenders’ responsibility. ................................................................................................. 49 Analysis. ........................................................................................................................................................ 51 3.1 Conceal victims’ resistance. ......................................................................................................... 52 Analysis. ........................................................................................................................................................ 55 3.2 Elucidate and honor victims’ resistance. ...................................................................................... 58 Analysis. ........................................................................................................................................................ 62 4.1 Blame or pathologize victims. ...................................................................................................... 64 Analysis. ........................................................................................................................................................ 66 4.2 Contest the blaming and pathologizing of victims. ...................................................................... 68 Analysis. ........................................................................................................................................................ 71 Discussion and Conclusion ......................................................................................................... 72 Limitations ............................................................................................................................................ 75 Conflicts of interest. ........................................................................................................................... 77 References .................................................................................................................................... 78 Appendix ...................................................................................................................................... 89 Data Exclusion Protocol ....................................................................................................................... 89 Running head: ASKING FOR IT 4 Abstract When the scandal surrounding ex-CBC broadcaster Jian Ghomeshi first broke in the fall of 2014, the subsequent outpouring of public opinion, and the ongoing tension between victim sympathy and legal due process as captured by the media, seemed to hinge on whether one perceived the case to be about violence or to be about rough sex. Given the literature linking the relevance of media coverage to public discourse and that this research was conducted prior to the first trial verdict, the following research question was posed: How does the language of journalistic media depicting victim and perpetrator involvement in the Jian Ghomeshi scandal reveal, expose, or distort perpetrators’ violence and victims’ responses and resistance? This question was addressed by analyzing pre-trial reporting from four major Canadian news sources and coding according to the four-discursive-operations of language framework by Coates and Wade (2007). The analysis revealed many ways in which public discourse about violence must be challenged if ultimate sexualized violence reform is ever to be possible. Acknowledgements I am grateful to the victims of sexualized violence whose stories of resistance and perseverance inspire me, to the language analysts who have gone before me as path forgers and mentors, and to the media who provoke me to dig deeper. I am appreciative of Professor Annette Przygoda for her responsive, prompt, succinct, and supportive supervision of this project. I am obliged to my parents (Phil and Linda), siblings (Amberia, Kaitlyn, Damian, and Courtney), friends, and colleagues, all of whom have put up with my hermit-ways and awkwardness in considering rape culture to be coffee conversation. I am indebted to Emily Jacques, my friend, fellow student, sounding board and thesis accountability partner, for walking this journey with me. Running head: ASKING FOR IT 5 Introduction In a case that was scheduled for two, single-judge trials in Toronto, Ontario Canada in 2016 (Shum, 2015) Jian Ghomeshi, former radio host of the “Q” with the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC), was charged with five counts of sexual assault and one count of overcoming resistance by choking for encounters between 2002 and 2008 (Brazao, 2015; Donovan & Hasham, 2015; Shum, 2015). Jian has since been acquitted of four of the five charges (R. v. Ghomeshi, 2016), with one of the assault charges